Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes

I love you.

Tomatoes were late this year. But they’re making up for it well into fall with incredible bounty. It’s this fickle unpredictability that is exactly why I am absolutely intoxicated with desire for them. Most of the year, tomatoes are a dull shadow of the rich, vibrant flavor they exude for the short time they are available from local soils. A sexy, teasing lusciousness that satisfies every craving to its fullest then gradually fades away to leave me alone with the sparse, barren winter. If I was a lot more on top of it, I would gather up this fecundity and do everything I could to prolong it. A dig this chick post this week rubbed my inadequacy in this area right in my face, and there was nothing I could do but smile as I read. And now I have a new target in my sights to hit before the glory ends: Tomato Pie. I don’t have much time left, but I hereby declare my commitment to get that made before it’s too late.

And there’s always next year, right? Every year I swear I’m finally going to grow my own to ensure my unquenchable lust for sun-ripened, homegrown tomatoes will be fulfilled, and every year I end up relying on neighbors and friends for their harvest, never quite getting enough. So I’ll just have to make the most of what I can get. A few weeks ago, I brought home these beauties:At the time, I was also on the prowl for recipes to easily boost our veggie intake and came across A Veggie Venture, a great resource for just that. As my browsing led me deeper into the vegetable forest, I found myself somewhere new yet related, as always happens with the magic of the Internet: Kitchen Parade, a food column by the Veggie Venture author, staring right into the face of a tantalizing and simple recipe for Shrimp with Tomatoes, Spinach and Feta. This was her fresh summer tomato version of a recipe showcased by several other excellent recipe resources that used canned tomatoes for a hearty winter dish. It didn’t take much convincing for me to get right to work. I sauteed the onions and garlic and added the chopped tomatoes.I was bent on following her instructions exactly so I could decide for myself how I might modify it in the future with a clear baseline in place. And I was doing so well, sticking to recommended times and adding the herbs and parsley and about half the spinach, into which I tucked the shrimp then topped with remaining spinach. Only, I forgot to add the feta. This was a key step to achieving the resulting “tomato-y, shrimp-y, cheese-y liquid that collects at the bottom of the skillet” that I was so looking forward to sopping up with fresh bread from Village Bakery. (I can’t find a website for them, but in addition to selling wholesale to stores and restaurants, they have a storefront in Sebastopol on Healdsburg Ave. well worth going to check out. They even make egg sandwiches on croissants for breakfast. Mmmm…)Nevertheless, I tossed the feta on top and left it to simmer for the 10-15 minutes required to cook the shrimp. It would all get mixed up eventually anyway. After about 15 minutes, it was looking pretty tasty.The extra juicy tomatoes I had selected did not let me down. A savory broth had been boiled from them and left plenty for sopping up with bread. Here are the things I would change for next time: I used an entire large onion, as specified, but it was way too much onion. I found the bottom of my bowl full of chopped onion, though I had been careful to distribute them evenly throughout my bites. I would remember to add the feta in earlier to see if the broth would in fact become cheese-y. Also, I did use a nonfat feta, which generally is flavorful enough, but I might go with a standard version to try for a more gooey effect. None of this mattered too much by the next day, however, when I ate the leftovers for lunch and they were twice as flavorful as the first go around!